When I was young, I made a lot of blanket forts. I built them so I could hide with a flashlight at night and read. Mom wanted me to sleep and I wanted to READ darn it!
Our furkids are pretty fond of blanket forts. Tito likes the one we make when we sit in bed and read or watch tv. He stands on us and paws at the blanket until it’s lifted and then he scoots under to sleep under our knees.
Tito is happily ensconced in his fort made by papa.
Jenny isn’t so fond of sleeping that close to a human. The only time she spends a lot of time close to us is when she is in zombie mode. Then she stands by daddy’s head and nibbles on his eyebrows and bald head. I’m sure she just wants to get at those brainzzzzzzz. Instead, she makes her fort on the cushion using the sheets we have hung up over the window to make it darker.
Wednesday was cold and grey at the beach, typical for winter in San Francisco.
Winter at Baker Beach
Aside from a few people fishing and a couple of dog walkers, I was alone. To my great delight, I discovered a beautiful little splash of color. To the person who created this, I thank you..!
Since I work at a major tourist destination on San Francisco’s waterfront, we fairly often get calls for missing children. For the most part these are younger children who got separated from their parents in crowds.
There are many people about, many distractions both visual and aural which contribute to quickly disorienting both child and parent. In the vast majority of cases, we reunite them within minutes (7 to 9 on average). My intent here is to point out a couple of things which can help first responders greatly: with digital media readily available, whether you use a camera or have one on your cell phone, take a picture of your child (or children) before venturing in crowded venues. From head to toe.
Secondly, if you have to provide a description of what the child is wearing (mothers are much better at this than dads), describing footwear is paramount. In the (hopefully) unlikely event that the child was grabbed either by an estranged parent or a predator, we will focus on what shoes children are wearing as we scan crowds: if the abductor planned to switch the child’s clothing, due largely to time constraints, he/she will not remove the shoes.
Shoes and hair color. When minutes count, this is the bare minimum.
I was suddenly reminded by a Facebook friend that I had these photos. The only thing they have in common is that they were taken on the same day in Golden Gate Park and involved water.
My first Caturday in quite a while is dedicated to Miss Jenny, the fabulous kittoon… I’ve not been able to sit and type about our pointy eared folk since Mazuzu passed, partly because the whole experience was so puzzling, like some sort of s****y real life cliffhanger.
For Mazuzu Whang
There was the possibility that Jenny introduced the virus which ultimately took over Maz after we adopted her. We don’t know and never will since there is no test for FIP. Rudha-an read up on this more than I and it may be that this disease may be a growing threat, affecting many more pets. At this point my understanding of it is largely empirical and will require a lot more reading. Be that as it may, both Jenny and Tito have been coming out of their shells ever so slowly these past few months.
Moi?
Tito now spends time on our bed, sometimes under covers when he’s not playing with Jenny. He coos and trills happily, greets me home from work with a game of ‘fetch’ and is generally more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. As to Jenny, she likes to rove around on the bed, once in a while stopping by to nibble an eyebrow, lick my skull or lightly ‘bite’ it while purring up a storm.
Sugar and spice and a touch of evil
And still, despite better diet, she’ll ‘grace’ me with a fart, in her completely innocent, matter-of-fact way. Her way of putting a spell on us is to fart in our general direction…
Today we want to celebrate our return from the dreaded 403 error code to wish our favorite blogger Nekoneko (aka Catgirl) a very wonderful and happy birthday. She has the great movie review site, Nekoneko’s Movie Litterbox where she reviews horror films from all over the world. Be sure to give her site a visit.
Now is the time to take a minute and look back on this past year, and the ways it affected the JBoD microcosm.
We spent much of 2012 watching sunsets and wildlife (fins!) from local beaches, but in April, we chose to visit the neighboring hill known as Bernalwood where stunning California poppies in full bloom awaited. On another more recent trip, amazing clouds treated us to an ‘air show’…
California poppies on Bernal Hill
In May, we finally managed a trip to see the California Academy of Sciences. The albino alligator named Claude is a real beauty.
Claude on his warming rock. He’s quite a handsome devil. Photo by Ron DeCloux.
I took a lot of photos, so it’s in four parts. One, two, three and four.
In June, a contractor working a few doors down from our home base cut into a gas line, resulting in a gas explosion and fire. Purely by chance, prevailing winds minimized the spread of the damage, a very good thing considering how long it took to shut off the gas. The kind of scene best left in movies, not real life. The Pointy Eared people weren’t amused…
Firefighters in action. The tan and brown building on the far left is where the construction was. The dentist office was in the white building.
Then in July, we lost our sweet, comical tyrannical food thief Kitsy to FIP. It was sudden and awful and I still haven’t been able to write a proper post for him. As for Lastech, he is still coming to terms with the possibility that the virus which took him might have been introduced by Miss Jenny. So little is known about FIP and no test being available, it remains a painful mystery.
The hawk was sitting in the tree just above eye level and only ten feet from the path.
A week or so later, we went exploring the Coastal Trail near the Golden Gate Bridge. We encountered another hawk, a couple of hummingbirds, a slug and a wonderful sunset.
Did I mention that hummingbirds like the pretty purple flowers?
We finished off the year by exploring the cliffs around Battery Mendell, a coastal battery that was built before WWI.
Photo by Rudha-an
That was our 2012 for the most part. Some was good and some was bad. Hopefully, 2013 will be an even better year.
Happy New Year from JBoD
Rudha-an, Lastech, Tito, and Miss Nightshade Jenny
It’s not raining right now. It’s an amazing thing. While we were safe enough, there were floods and rock slides and trees falling all over. It was a mess, to say the least. We had horizontal rain and hail thanks to high winds. Tito was NOT amused and spent a lot of time hiding as a result. He’s happier now.
Tito lurked nervously after the last stormMeanwhile, Miss Jenny got over her fear and settled in to watch the seagulls that were taunting her.
The evil of Farther Christmas has been unleashed upon the world once more. Can a small group of reindeer herders catch him in time to sell it to the Americans?
Like all industries, Christmas is made up of many businesses, the more unsavory and dangerous ones, the more “interesting” the folklore.
The hunters
While NORAD pretends to track Santa’s sleigh every year, the real hunting takes place on the frozen ground of Northern Finland, Lapland to be exact. There, rough men practice skills honed over generations, working in groups of three: the tracker, the marker and the sniper. Their quarry is the Wild Father Christmas, an elusive and savage predator pouncing on reindeer and naughty children alike. The following video is NSFW:
In “Rare exports: a Christmas tale“, Mount Kurvatunturi, the site where Father Christmas was entombed is being “excavated” with explosives by an American company, Unwittingly, they unleash the ancient evil. It is now up to local reindeer herders and father and son Rauno and Pietari Kontio (Jorma and Onni Tommila) to capture the beast and sell it to the Americans.
… Father Christmas is out there, ravenous, nasty and lethal. Until the tame final product, result of hard work and hours of beatings, is fit for shipment around the world. “Rare exports: a Christmas tale” is where it begins…
We’re not doing anything exciting for Christmas. We picked up a leg of lamb and some fancy taters. With luck, Miss Jenny won’t be able to steal one and bring it to bed like the last time. We might go off to the park or the beach for a good walk though. 🙂
I would like to apologize for not posting lately. I’ve been doing some major maintenance on the blog (behind the scenes). I should have it all tidied up soon.
It has been raining and raining here. I don’t mind. As you can see here, it makes our hills a very pretty shade of green.
Here are the beasties.
Miss Jenny was using Tlito as a pillow
Here are our two “angel” kitties.
Our sweet and comical food thief. Kitsy is missedThe Boober. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. We miss him too.
And now for the recipe. I love pumpkin bread, but most times I find it dry and mealy. This recipe is NOT dry. It’s moist and wonderful. My mom and dad have made it for years.
Mom and Dad’s Pumpkin Bread
5 cups pumpkin (1 large and 1 small can)
2 cups white sugar
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cloves
2 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup nuts
5 cups flour
Mix all the ingredients well. Makes 2 large bread loaves, or up to ten smaller loaves. Bake at 350 for 1 hr. and 5 minutes. May take longer. Bread is done when a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
We always greased the pans and sprinkled them with sugar (rather than flour). We also sprinkled a bit of sugar on top as it made the top crunchy.
Obviously, this is NOT diet food. 🙂
This is why we do NOT have a Christmas tree in the apartment.
